


Green

by I_touch_the_walls



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon - Anime, Canon Compliant, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 04:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19899517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_touch_the_walls/pseuds/I_touch_the_walls
Summary: "Levi could feel the pulse of Eren's life with his head pressed into the curve of his neck, his hand on his heart, his fingers circling Eren's wrist."Spring was so far away, but Eren was right here.





	Green

**Author's Note:**

> This is strictly anime compliant, I don't want to open the manga's can of worms quite yet :,)

The world should be green, like spring's rebirth, the wet dirt fresh with new life filling his lungs like a hot air balloon until he was floating on the edge of hope. Spring and wet dirt and new recruits with their green cloaks thrown around their shoulders, the wings of freedom outstretched in the wind, youth making them invincible for just a few more days. Spring and wet dirt and new recruits and their freedom and green tea, steaming and piping hot straight from the pot when the early spring nights became too chilly, a single sip burning in the pit of his stomach until it spread out and warmed him down to his bones.

Spring and wet dirt and new recruits and their freedom and tea.

Green.

It's all he wanted.

Instead, the world was awash with red, months and months of it. Giant beasts and men and women, really just children, dead and freedom reduced to skulking in the shadows, killing more men and women and not enough food, never any tea, tasteless calories to keep the body moving and spring was so far away. Beyond far away. Levi wasn't sure if he would ever see the next year's spring. He couldn't promise his squad would ever see it again either. Children, young and tired and shackled without their own spring to look forward to. Levi had seen enough springs; their's were barely even remembered.

But some green was found, salvaged from the ruins of Shiganshina and nearly lost in the giants of Trost but saved in the nick of time, well before Levi knew how precious this new life would be to humanity and his comrades and him. Perhaps it was a sixth sense, because Levi could already tell spring was too far away, and they were getting alarmingly close to where he started everything--with darkness and cold, damp air unfit for breathing and fighting for food amongst your friends and loved ones and never knowing what green even was, how it could breath life into the hardest of hearts.

Spring was found lying on the floor with thin sheets between them and the dirt, listening to the paced breaths of his squad members as they slept, wondering when sleep would come so easily to him again and then seeing the flash of those eyes looking right at him across the stomped out fire, creased at the edges like he was worried or scared or maybe that he was seeking reassurance in Levi's solid, mature gaze. Staring for hours in to those eyes without a word, letting the quiet breaths blanket them as they held their silent conversation, and one of the most intimate experiences of Levi's life. That night, he felt like Eren's eyes held the secrets of too many lives behind those dilated pupils.

The next morning, those lives were gone, replaced by the childish determination Levi craved, having forgotten and abandoned it too many years ago.

"We can do it!" Eren had told his squad members that morning as they ate their soldier's breakfast over the newly stoked fire. "Titans or humans, if we don't fight, we can't win. We'll make it, so don't worry about it."

Levi believed him.

Spring was found in a flurry of fingers strapping on his ODM gear, the rest of the squad following suit, sleeping bags abandoned in favor of grabbing weapons and, Levi being true to his word, "hauling ass" out of the makeshift hideout.

Eren extended a hand through the opening in the roof, having made it there before Levi, with a rush of words, "Captain--" and Sasha's gasped, "I hear someone coming!"

But everyone was on the roof and running for the trees before they were ever found, Eren's hand pulling Levi to the edge of the roof and only slipping away when their ODM gear's wires stretched out in front of them.

Spring was found in damp breath, lips on lips, arms wrapped around each other and hands grasping, reaching, seizing. Levi was afraid, not for the first time, but for the first time, he could feel it showing so plainly on his face. A quick rendezvous, and Levi was lost in those eyes and the lives he could see reflected in them and Eren's gasps of "you're here, you're here." Levi could feel the pulse of Eren's life with his head pressed into the curve of his neck, his hand on his heart, his fingers circling Eren's wrist.

The hope and the untapped freedom and strength held in Levi's hands just because he was pressing them against Eren's skin made him shiver. "I can't," he whispered, the terror too quick of a killer to hide. "I can't, you're--" Levi didn't know how to say that Eren was too full of life and too young to waste on himself. Too much for Levi to handle despite the overwhelming desire to be able to handle him right in that moment and forever.

"You're thinking too much," Eren told him, but his voice was quivering, and Levi knew in that moment that Eren knew what Levi couldn't say.

"I have to think enough for both of us," he tried to make it sound like a bite, but it went unnoticed when Levi let himself be washed away.

✥✥✥

Eren was too young to understand it. He might never know that the green in his eyes was a lifeline; Levi's bane and saving grace.

Eren was not wet dirt and new recruits and their freedom and tea. He was Levi's spring, his new beginning. He was Levi's chains and shackles, his welcome home and his desperate search. Death followed them both, but together they would manage to live. Levi wouldn't give it up, and if Eren ran, he would chase. Whoever took him, where ever he went, Levi would follow because Eren was the last green Levi ever wanted to see.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect myself to ever write a Levi x Eren fic, but I've recently rewatched the anime after a year long break and am a bit disappointed in the lack of tasteful fics for the ship (especially one shots) (and by tasteful, I mean emotion-based opposed to, y'know, A/B/O), so I've decided to make my own. If you know any good one shots, hmu! I'm not currently down for super long fics though...too much dedication lmao


End file.
